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PlayStation VR Pre-Orders Sell Out In Minutes At Amazon (roadtovr.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Once seen as the underdog, Sony's PlayStation VR headset continues to hold its own against PC-based competitors Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The company announced last week that they won't ship the PSVR headset until October, but they also announced an attractive $399 price compared to the Rift at $599 and Vive at $799. And it appears the company's existing addressable market of 36 million PS4 owners are ready to get on board; Amazon U.S. opened pre-orders for the PSVR Launch Bundle this morning and sold out of its stock allocation in less than 10 minutes. Walmart befell the same fate quickly thereafter, though several other retailers in the U.S. are still showing pre-order stock.
It's 399 if you already have the required camera and move controllers.(Which a lot of people don't have.) There is a package deal with those included for 499.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Do you realise that the finished PSVR was demonstrated to most game journalists and game developers in the recent Game Developers Conference? All reviews from this have been amazingly positive of the experience, except for one or two that complained about lag with the Move controller. They were _all_ very positive about the headset hardware itself, and its performance.
Now, perhaps 20% of those journalists may fit into your category of "stupid enough to fall for marketing hype". Not all, though. Certainly not the game devs. Those guys know what they're talking about.
My brother is a graphics programmer and a game dev. He was at the GDC. He tried the Sony headset. He was very impressed with it, rating it above the Vive for graphic quality, despite the PSVR having lower resolution. Believe me, he is no idiot.
The PSVR undoubtedly works well. Development has been years in the making, starting even before the Rift kickstarter, and it is now finished. The only ones who bore the development costs are Sony themselves. All is left now is manufacturing and distribution. Preorders help the manufacturer know what demand there is for the product, and how much effort they need to go to for manufacture. People putting their money down early is the best way for a manufacturer to gauge what demand will be like. The preorder numbers are invaluable for the high level of manufacturing needed for this.
Virtual reality has been a dream for a lot of people. Sony's PSVR has made that dream relatively affordable. Don't be a dick and call them dumb.